The Valentine Child. JACQUELINE BAIRD
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me worry about the expense, little one. You try and get some sleep.’
She should have been reassured, but somehow she wasn’t. Maybe it was the way he avoided her eyes, or perhaps the way he allowed her hand to fall from his, but she had the strangest notion that he was simply pacifying her as he would a troublesome child.
‘I will if you stay with me,’ she said slowly. She was testing him, and hated herself for it, but the events of the day had severely dented her confidence in her husband’s love and she needed some sign from him, freely given, to allay her doubts and fears.
‘I need my sleep even if you don’t. I’m a lot older than you, remember.’
‘Please, Justin, I need you tonight, simply to hold me. What with the funeral…’ She didn’t want to plead, but somehow it had become essential to her peace of mind and her trust in him that just this once he stayed all night. To her relief and delight he agreed.
‘Let me dispose of the protection.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’
And he was. Zoë yawned widely and snuggled into the hard warmth of her cautious husband’s arms. ‘You’re not old,’ she whispered, a smile twitching her swollen lips. It was ridiculous—a more virile, powerful man than her husband would be hard to find, and yet somehow the fact that he should worry about his age made him seem touchingly vulnerable. It never bothered her.
Justin, true to his word, had the house valued by a prestigious estate agent with a view to selling the place. But to Zoë’s amazement Justin informed her, before they actually put it on the market, that she was to have her twenty-first birthday party at Black Gables. It was all arranged; the guests had already been invited.
Apparently Justin had done it at Bertie’s request. It had been his last wish that the party go ahead whether he was there to see it or not. Zoë was not absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do only three weeks after her uncle’s death, but, as usual, she gave in to her dynamic husband’s wishes.
The next few weeks she passed in a kind of limbo, torn between grief for her uncle and her inability to get really close to her husband.
Justin was very busy as the new head of chambers, and she saw less and less of him. She tried to tell herself it was natural—he had more work to get through. But sometimes in the evening, after yet another solitary dinner, a devilish, tiny voice from the deeper reaches of her mind would rise up to taunt her with the thought that he had married her to please Bertie and get the firm. He had the firm and Bertie was no longer around to see if he neglected his wife. She found it more and more difficult to dismiss her suspicions, however much she tried.
Justin was no help. He rarely talked about his work but he did inform her that he would be staying in town on Monday evenings. He had taken over the job of boxing coach with a group of young offenders at an East End boys’ club. Very laudable—and she believed him even as she missed him. But her inability to dismiss completely the conversation she had overheard on the day of her uncle’s funeral was a constant source of unease.
She was a practical girl—with egotistical film-star parents she had had to be from a very young age. She knew she was being silly, letting Sara Blacket’s catty remarks get to her. Justin loved her. They were married for heaven’s sake!
But, however much she tried to convince herself, the doubt lingered. It didn’t help that Justin seemed to spend longer and longer in London. He was working far too hard, but nothing she said could make him change.
She was smiling as ‘she spun the wheel of her Mini Metro and headed up the drive to come to a halt, with a screech of brakes, outside the front door of the house. She had spent the day in London, and had had the rare pleasure of lunching with her husband at an exclusive restaurant before raiding Harvey Nichols. The baglying on the passenger seat contained the most exotic gown she had ever owned.
She picked up the carrier-bag and chuckled as she dashed out of the car and into the house. She could not wait to see Justin’s face when he saw her new dress. She wouldn’t give a cent for his iron control tomorrow night—her birthday party. The gown was guaranteed to knock him dead. But why did she need to? The question hovered on the fringes of her mind, undermining her confidence.
Not bad—not bad at all, she thought, posing naked in front of the mirrored wall of the bathroom, sucking in her stomach, her small breasts rising enticingly. Were they bigger than usual? she wondered idly. Probably Justin’s expert massage was to blame. She giggled and, with a happy smile illuminating her small face, spun round as the object of her thoughts strolled in.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said delightedly. She had not seen him since last night and her eyes drank in the sight of the large, splendid bulk of him, clad in a plain black towelling robe that stopped mid-thigh, the deep V of the front exposing his broad, hairy chest. Her heart jumped in her breast as, eyes shining, she walked towards him, ‘You must have got back when I was in the shower.’
‘Mmm,’ Justin grunted, his gaze sweeping slowly over her silver-blonde hair, the perfect oval face, the finely arched brows, the huge, thick-lashed eyes, the small, straight nose and the wide full-lipped, rosy mouth, curved in a warm smile of welcome. His gaze lingered on the lips, then moved almost as if against his will down to the high, full breasts, the tiny waist and flat stomach, the softly flaring hips, his eyes darkening to black in the process.
Zoë, seeing his reaction and thrilled by it, moved closer and slipped a hand under the lapel of his robe. ‘Thank you for the card and the roses. I love them,’ she husked, thinking of the magnificent bouquet of red roses that had been delivered to the house earlier.
‘My pleasure, birthday girl’ he drawled none too steadily.
She felt him tense as her fingernail scraped supposedly accidentally over a small, pebble-like male nipple. Perhaps she had been wrong about Justin; perhaps her fantasy of them in the shower was not so unlikely, she thought, excitement sizzling in her veins.
‘Shall I help you to shower?’ she asked throatily, glancing up at his tough face through the thick veil of her lashes in what she hoped was a seductive fashion.
His eyes flashed gold lightning as his arm swept around her waist and hauled her into his hard body, while his other hand caught her wandering one beneath his robe. ‘You little devil,’ he rasped, before covering her mouth with his own in a long, hard kiss.
When he finally released her she was dazed and breathless and aching. ‘Justin…’ She sighed his name. But, to her chagrin, he spun her round, patted her naked bottom, and almost pushed her out of the door.
‘Tempting though the offer is, it’s late. The guests will be arriving any minute. Get dressed and allow me to do the same.’
‘Spoilsport,’ she shouted back cheekily, regaining her equilibrium and shooting him a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.
Justin tossed back his black head and laughed out loud. ‘Hold the thought till later, darling, when I have time to do it justice, hmm?’
His parting words filled her with confidence as she stood in front of the cheval-glass, turning this way and that, a complacent grin lighting her face. So much for a Dresden doll, she thought triumphantly. Tonight no one would be in any doubt she was all woman.
The black dress was like nothing she had ever owned before—a sophisticated designer original with tiny, narrow straps supporting the pure silk bodice. She wore no bra because the back was non-existent except for a very broad, sequin-encrusted belt in gold, which nipped her tiny waist and pushed her firm breasts higher— almost empire-style—revealing the curve of the milky white orbs and a tantalising shadowy cleavage.
The skirt was straight to her ankles and figure-hugging, with a teasing fish tail at the back. Matching four-inchheel satin sandals on her feet gave her an illusion of height, as did the heavy sweep of her blonde hair piled up on the top of her head in a chignon, a few strands of hair pulled free to curl enticingly around her face and the back of her neck.
She did not need foundation, simply a good moisturiser